New Systems - Bounties and City Siege

I wrote this in another thread just then, and would like to hear everybody's ideas. This is about a bounty and city siege system that would be really fun to implement into the game.

Bounty

For example: I'm a Horde player. I kill an Alliance player (must be of equal maximum level), and I gain a bounty of "1". This score is then tallied and I'm listed on a Bounty Board that's available for players to read from at all of the Alliance player's cities. Your bounty is relative to how many enemy faction players you've killed, and when you die this number resets. Gold is awarded at "5" per bounty, and Honor is awarded at "15" per bounty. Additional rewards may be included via achievements. This bounty board can also be organized in such ways as: "A to Z", "Highest Bounty to Lowest Bounty" and "Last Seen Location". These are obvious as to what they do, but the "Last Seen Location" only updates whenever you change a zone and it will not update until you change zone again (note: this does not include cities). I considered adding the option to see whether the player is online, or offline but I felt that it would hamper the system just a tad too much so I did not include it but it's still up for debate.

My name is "Blithe", I have a bounty of "106" and my last seen location was "Winterspring". Few Alliance players decide that they'd like to kill me and collect my bounty, so they go the Bounty Board and click "Track Bounty". This then shows my information (Name, Bounty, Last Seen Location) in the "Objectives" section where Quests are shown which is updated in real time which means for example: that if my location changed, it would update it within the "Objectives" section, and if I were to be killed it would strikeout the information (or just display my Bounty as "Collected" in red text) and alert the player with a sound.

In this case, I haven't been killed yet so the player continues on to Winterspring until they reach Ashenvale and notice I've moved onto Mount Hyjal so they change their destination. Once they arrive, they search the zone for my location and proceed to kill me to which the player then returns to a city and talks to the Bounty Master to receive their "530" gold and "1590" honor reward. My information is then removed from the "Objectives" tab, and I'm taken off of the Bounty Board until I've killed another player. The Bounty Master also has certain rewards that unlock based on how much bounty you've been rewarded, or how much bounty you've accumulated from killing the opposing faction.

There would also be Daily PvP quests which change from zone-to-zone after every daily reset that you'd be able to do at the maximum level. What is meant by this is that one day, your dailies could be in Tanaris, the next they could be in Grizzly Hills and the next they're in the Western Plaguelands. These quests can be collected from the Bounty Master, and are an incentive to visit the world. All of the quests send both factions to the same area so that you can complete them, as well as engage in world PvP. There'd also be some sort of protection against getting the same area twice in two days, in addition to it not being available to starting areas or capital cities.

For example: I'm a newly dinged maximum level player who's in search for new PvP gear. Battlegrounds are an option, but I'd rather enjoy the open world and what it has to offer. I go to the Bounty Master, and he/she gives me 5 dailies that reward 100 Honor each and some gold equivalent to a maximum level quest. That area happens to be Feralas. I travel there and move to the area required to complete them. There'll be some sort of objectives for them and you'll have plenty of the opposite faction to kill. Once you complete them, you return to your city and hand in the quests.

Siege

In addition, a new "Siege" event will be available. Every week your faction will take turns in attacking a city, and defending your own. For every new week, the roles reverse, and the city being attacked or defended will change. There'd also be protection against getting the same city twice in two weeks. If I'm an Alliance player, I'm attacking Orgrimmar in week #1 while the Horde is defending it, and in week #2, the Alliance is defending the Exodar and the Horde is attacking it. Of course, to determine the outcome of the siege there must be a resource and I've decided on "1000". Now this could be based on "Kills", or "Resources". If it's based off of kills, the attacker must reach 1,000 kills to win the siege and if the week is up before that then the defender wins. There's also resources, where there'd be flags, or capture points around the city, or just population-proportionate areas that reward points (at a slow acquisition rate) to the faction holding them. If the attackers accumulate 500 points or more by the time the siege has finished, they will win. The defender has to hold points to slow, or decrease that number and keep them below 500. If they do that successfully, the defenders will win.

I've no idea for rewards yet, maybe some fancy guard-related transmog or whatever but who knows, this is just a concept. There'd also have to be things in place that stop a city being camped for 24-hours - maybe a timed stop that happens every few hours and lasts a duration like Wintergrasp and Tol Barad? You'd be attacking/defending the city for 2 hours every 2, 4 or 6 hours (I haven't decided), and the resources/score cannot be change outside of that and there'd be no queue, so you'd have to make it there yourself. There'd also have to be some limitations to NPC's, such as only the guards can attack you.

I think they're good ideas, as they'd give us:

• Incentive to engage in World PvP
• Ability to siege cities
• Chance to explore the world and make it active
• An additional gain of honor (not an alternative, 4200 Honor per week is still a small amount)

Would love some feedback, and I could elaborate on things. I do see some flaws, but overall I like the concept.

Originally Posted by MurlocWarlock

If you just love being that guy that purposely, or accidentally carries out the action of "letting them win", roll a shaman, and get a FREE vacation to the Ashran Graveyard with scenic tombstones and a magnificent sunset view of your faction hiding in the bubble as DKS, hunters and Treesus Christ roflstomp your base, and all you have to do is call this number!

As for the Bounty I wouldn't be happy about the opposite faction tracking me down when I try to go on with my business.

Maybe, but it'd be a fun weekly rotational event to do. Besides, Blizzard's said both Wintergrasp and Tol Barad will be turned into instanced Battlegrounds.

I do see your point, but you wouldn't be listed unless you have a bounty, and with a low one from not killing many players you could scrape by easily without being tracked at all. Your bounty is also relative to how many enemy faction players you've killed, so it'd only increase if you kill enemy players and everyone I'd assume would increase at a gradual pace, while there are the few at the top of the list who have a noticeably higher bounty and would catch the attention of bounty hunters.

I probably forgot to mention that these concepts would only work on PvP realms, but I guess that's sort of obvious given the "PvP" section I posted it in. With some tweaking, you may be able to get them to work on PvE realms, too.

Last edited by Blithe; 2014-06-03 at 05:12 PM.

Originally Posted by MurlocWarlock

If you just love being that guy that purposely, or accidentally carries out the action of "letting them win", roll a shaman, and get a FREE vacation to the Ashran Graveyard with scenic tombstones and a magnificent sunset view of your faction hiding in the bubble as DKS, hunters and Treesus Christ roflstomp your base, and all you have to do is call this number!

This would be a great addition to the game. I have always felt a siege of a city would be pretty awesome and not only add game play but make sense, I mean we are at WAR with the each other so why wouldnt they try to capitalize and win battles ect. Love the idea of the bounty system but I feel it would be to easy to track down. It should update their "Last Seen Location" after they kill another opposite faction member not whenever they chance zones to give it more of a real feeling.

bounty is too rogue friendly, as is any world pvp, would require some way to deal with their way to just easily escape other classes that are not a feral or rogue or just sit in stealth and be unable to find them, or maybe sitting in stealth would lower their reward it's just too powerful for world pvp that gives rewards, but arena/battlegrounds it's no issue as there are objectives hiding away doesn't help.

Bounty system has been brought up many times in the past and I'd love to see it implemented, but there are a lot of things that need to be ironed out first.

E.g. If two or more people attack the person the bounty is on should the bounty be split because it's basically 2v1? Seems fair. But what about if 4 people in a guild help 1 of their undergeared members by ganking and overpowering the bounty person, etc.

I'm sure with a lot of thought it can be done. It would be a blast and a great boost to world pvp.

This would be a great addition to the game. I have always felt a siege of a city would be pretty awesome and not only add game play but make sense, I mean we are at WAR with the each other so why wouldnt they try to capitalize and win battles ect. Love the idea of the bounty system but I feel it would be to easy to track down. It should update their "Last Seen Location" after they kill another opposite faction member not whenever they chance zones to give it more of a real feeling.

Thanks for the feedback! I've always loved raiding an enemy factions city, but it's gotten less popular over the years and I'd like to bring it back. After all, we are at war, and it would bring about a great sense of fun for those who loved doing that.

I agree with your suggestion, and now that I've re-evaluated it, it does make a lot more sense for it to update after a recent kill rather than a zone change. It'd make tracking you a lot harder and maybe in addition to changing it to recent kill, we could add a timer displaying how long ago it was when that kill took place? Just so you don't go looking for a bounty and his/her kill was actually a week or two ago, so their listed zone isn't completely irrelevant which would basically be a waste of time and wouldn't be fun at all.

I also thought about limiting bounties to only a certain amount of people (1-3) per bounty, so those who are first in first served from starting the bounty on the Bounty Board are able to do it, just to stop large groups of players from stalking the bounty target and giving incentive to complete it on their own.

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Originally Posted by Socialhealer

bounty is too rogue friendly, as is any world pvp, would require some way to deal with their way to just easily escape other classes that are not a feral or rogue or just sit in stealth and be unable to find them, or maybe sitting in stealth would lower their reward it's just too powerful for world pvp that gives rewards, but arena/battlegrounds it's no issue as there are objectives hiding away doesn't help.

That raises a good question, and I'm not sure how you'd deal with that actually... maybe stealth players would be visible after a certain accumulated bounty, or are only visible (while in stealth) to those who are hunting the bounty target, so basically stealth does not work in hiding from a bounty hunter? You might be able to buy some sort of ESP device from the Bounty Master that aids you in the detection of hidden players, which beeps and pulses a weak signal on your mini-map whenever it finds a player using stealth, of course that would be quite strong so there'd be a 10 or 15 second cooldown between each pulse. Maybe you could even buy Thermal Goggles like in one of the Stonetalon quests. The hidden player would give off a weak sort of 'breadcrumb' heat signature that trails towards the hidden target? Of course this would have a lower range, but it'd be usable constantly instead of having to wait for the pulse from the ESP.

There's a few ways to go about it, I guess. But you brought up a great discussion point, thanks!

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Originally Posted by gestapo

Bounty system has been brought up many times in the past and I'd love to see it implemented, but there are a lot of things that need to be ironed out first.

E.g. If two or more people attack the person the bounty is on should the bounty be split because it's basically 2v1? Seems fair. But what about if 4 people in a guild help 1 of their undergeared members by ganking and overpowering the bounty person, etc.

I'm sure with a lot of thought it can be done. It would be a blast and a great boost to world pvp.

Me too!

Yes, the bounty would be split. As I said in my previous post I decided I'd limit the amount of people that can do a bounty at a time from anywhere between 1 and 3 so that you don't have multitudes of players flocking to the same bounty. I think you'd also have to be in the same party and on the same bounty if you want to "share" the bounty, as well. Players who are already on a bounty will be listed next to the bounty on the bounty board, with a maximum of 3 players at any one time.

• If you kill the bounty yourself, you receive 100% of the reward, and it's marked as failed for the other one or two players.
• If you're in a party with one or two other players who are on the same bounty, the reward is split equally depending on who participated.
• Those who are in the same party but not on the same bounty (i.e the other two players, out of the five) will not receive a reward, and if they damage, crowd control or affect the bounty, or heal or aid you at all during the encounter, the bounty will be marked as failed, and no one will receive any rewards.
• If you're tracking the bounty, and someone else kills it, it's marked as failed for you.

- Deters guild members from helping you (unless they're on the same bounty and in the same party).
- Stops multitudes of players from tracking the same bounty.
- Rewards either small group play, or solo play.

A sort of reward for "being" the bounty target would be awesome, too. If you successfully thwart an attack from those on the bounty quest, you could receive some kind of reward.

Originally Posted by MurlocWarlock

If you just love being that guy that purposely, or accidentally carries out the action of "letting them win", roll a shaman, and get a FREE vacation to the Ashran Graveyard with scenic tombstones and a magnificent sunset view of your faction hiding in the bubble as DKS, hunters and Treesus Christ roflstomp your base, and all you have to do is call this number!

For example: I'm a newly dinged maximum level player who's in search for new PvP gear. Battlegrounds are an option, but I'd rather enjoy the open world and what it has to offer. I go to the Bounty Master, and he/she gives me 5 dailies that reward 100 Honor each and some gold equivalent to a maximum level quest. That area happens to be Feralas. I travel there and move to the area required to complete them. There'll be some sort of objectives for them and you'll have plenty of the opposite faction to kill. Once you complete them, you return to your city and hand in the quests.

If you are newly dinged, I don't get how this would be good.

This has been brought up several times in the past. I kinda like your idea though.
But do you have to kill a player alone to get a bounty? Or can you be in a group ganking people and get bounties together?

Originally Posted by Socialhealer

bounty is too rogue friendly, as is any world pvp, would require some way to deal with their way to just easily escape other classes that are not a feral or rogue or just sit in stealth and be unable to find them, or maybe sitting in stealth would lower their reward it's just too powerful for world pvp that gives rewards, but arena/battlegrounds it's no issue as there are objectives hiding away doesn't help.

This is true. Rogues are the ultimate assassins and would have advantages.

As for the Siege; I believe it could be a good idea, but it should be instanced, not attacking the actual city.
There are some other things to look into. How would resources be dealt with. What about low populated realm? Are there enough players to even make a siege of a major city enjoyable?

Anyway I have always liked the idea. Creating a new currency and UI system are the best bets imo. I really liked the idea of every zone having a daily objective to take with rewards, and opposite factions members could jump to the defense quickly, thereby promoting random pvp on the fly. I can imagine a busy server: I sign on and open my world pvp UI and see, holy shit, honor hold and redridge are being attacked RIGHT F'ING NOW. Boom, jump into a raid, port to defense, instant action. But look, we have a group forming for a counterattack on borean tundra for the rescue daily that gives 200 conquest. Thats how I envisioned it.

Last edited by Hand Banana; 2014-06-04 at 09:21 AM.

Originally Posted by Gandrake

I like how when people complain about getting killed by kill shot which can have a 43 yard range, no resource cost, and can be used again if it doesn't kill and everyone says WELL, HEY, YOU KNOW, IT IS CALLED KILL SHOT
but when a warrior does it, clearly the ability's name is "useless wet noodle piece of shit strike with an exorbitant rage cost that should do the same damage as MS"

This has been brought up several times in the past. I kinda like your idea though.
But do you have to kill a player alone to get a bounty? Or can you be in a group ganking people and get bounties together?

This is true. Rogues are the ultimate assassins and would have advantages.

As for the Siege; I believe it could be a good idea, but it should be instanced, not attacking the actual city.
There are some other things to look into. How would resources be dealt with. What about low populated realm? Are there enough players to even make a siege of a major city enjoyable?

Even if you are newly dinged, you can still participate. The daily quests are for the honor; the killing of the enemy faction is optional for those new players, but more of an incentive to engage in World PvP for everyone as a whole since it's an area a lot of people will be going to.

You could either do the bounty yourself, or alongside one or two other players who have chosen to do that bounty. A maximum of three players can be on one bounty at any one time. If you're not on the bounty, you will not receive a reward, and participating in the hunt in any way whether it be attacking the bounty target, or aiding the hunters while you're also not on the bounty, would cause the reward to decrease in value, or be forfeited entirely. Players who are already on the bounty are listed next to it on the Bounty Board. You have the option to either continue on with the bounty yourself, or join the existing members.

When it comes to Rogues: an ESP device that you could buy that attempts to detect hidden players within 40 yards by sending out a signal and returning it back to you. A signal is returned if a hidden player is found followed by a "ping" sound, and a static red dot is displayed on your mini-map or radar. Intervals between signals are 10 seconds apart; a pair of Thermal Goggles that you could buy that you're able to equip that allow you to see heat signatures of hidden players. When hidden players move, they create a trail of heat that dissipates 20 yards behind them. A hidden player shows up as a large heat signature and is able to be attacked. Both bounty, and bounty hunter can use these and buy them from the Bounty Master with gold.

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Originally Posted by Hand Banana

This is extremely similar to an idea I posted a few times a while back. The only difference was the "siege" part was more open world and less staged.

Anyway I have always liked the idea. Creating a new currency and UI system are the best bets imo. I really liked the idea of every zone having a daily objective to take with rewards, and opposite factions members could jump to the defense quickly, thereby promoting random pvp on the fly. I can imagine a busy server: I sign on and open my world pvp UI and see, holy shit, honor hold and redridge are being attacked RIGHT F'ING NOW. Boom, jump into a raid, port to defense, instant action. But look, we have a group forming for a counterattack on borean tundra for the rescue daily that gives 200 conquest. Thats how I envisioned it.

I apologize for not seeing those threads. I've wanted these sorts of "randomized daily PvP quest zones" ever since Halaa and such came out in the Burning Crusade, as an incentive to engage in more World PvP, but also as an option to get some quick Honor from the gated dailies. I could see myself flying around Azeroth, Outland, Northrend or Pandaria for the extra honor and the option to engage in some large scale PvP battles.

City siege has always been on my mind too, and I'm ashamed they haven't really tried to work upon it at all. At this point, though, anything to get us out into the world is a good thing as we're sitting in Shrine just as much as we sat in Orgrimmar during Cataclysm, it's sad.

I do like your ideas a lot though, it'd be interesting having a choice to attack or defend out of two outposts rather than cities. Do I defend the Crossroads and Thrallmar, or do I attack Valiance Keep and Thelsamar? A teleport to some sort of staging front, or mounted defense would be necessary - even if it takes away the immersion of travelling to the battle yourself.

Last edited by Blithe; 2014-06-04 at 10:33 AM.

Originally Posted by MurlocWarlock

If you just love being that guy that purposely, or accidentally carries out the action of "letting them win", roll a shaman, and get a FREE vacation to the Ashran Graveyard with scenic tombstones and a magnificent sunset view of your faction hiding in the bubble as DKS, hunters and Treesus Christ roflstomp your base, and all you have to do is call this number!

Like em both. They might need some tweaking here and there to avoid griefing, but sounds cool!

Plenty of tweaks. I've proposed changes to half of the mechanics just replying to people in this thread. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Sesto

I remember someone proposing a Bounty system back during Wrath beta. Still would like to see something like that implemented.

I remember seeing some on the original forums at one point, but I never got around to actually reading them. How similar are the ideas I've mentioned and so forth?

After revision, and some feedback from everybody I might post it on the Blizzard forums and link it back here. /shrug

Originally Posted by MurlocWarlock

If you just love being that guy that purposely, or accidentally carries out the action of "letting them win", roll a shaman, and get a FREE vacation to the Ashran Graveyard with scenic tombstones and a magnificent sunset view of your faction hiding in the bubble as DKS, hunters and Treesus Christ roflstomp your base, and all you have to do is call this number!

I apologize for not seeing those threads. I've wanted these sorts of "randomized daily PvP quest zones" ever since Halaa and such came out in the Burning Crusade, as an incentive to engage in more World PvP, but also as an option to get some quick Honor from the gated dailies. I could see myself flying around Azeroth, Outland, Northrend or Pandaria for the extra honor and the option to engage in some large scale PvP battles.

City siege has always been on my mind too, and I'm ashamed they haven't really tried to work upon it at all. At this point, though, anything to get us out into the world is a good thing as we're sitting in Shrine just as much as we sat in Orgrimmar during Cataclysm, it's sad.

I do like your ideas a lot though, it'd be interesting having a choice to attack or defend out of two outposts rather than cities. Do I defend the Crossroads and Thrallmar, or do I attack Valiance Keep and Thelsamar? A teleport to some sort of staging front, or mounted defense would be necessary - even if it takes away the immersion of travelling to the battle yourself.

I do like the randomized zones idea and your bounty idea is alot more polished than ones I have seen. If it seriously came down to it I feel that just implementing bounty and nothing else would take very little effort on bliz's part (which I always try to emphasize since it needs to be realistic). Attach a (de)buff to every honorable kill received that increases your honor/gold/conquest whatever worth. Tack on a simple UI that shows the 20 highest bounties online and some new achieves and whatnot. Seems easy to implement, even if the other ideas take too much effort. The only issue is with cross-faction players on the same server its far too easy to abuse the system. I don't know how they could safeguard it: like maybe you get only 5 bounty stacks per toon killed per day? I mean, a group of friends could just get naked farmed by an opposing faction friend and get all the achieves and such in a day.

Originally Posted by Gandrake

I like how when people complain about getting killed by kill shot which can have a 43 yard range, no resource cost, and can be used again if it doesn't kill and everyone says WELL, HEY, YOU KNOW, IT IS CALLED KILL SHOT
but when a warrior does it, clearly the ability's name is "useless wet noodle piece of shit strike with an exorbitant rage cost that should do the same damage as MS"

I haven't PVP'd in ages, the exception being in the ones required for the Legendary questline. I have to say that both of these ideas really intrigue me, and would totally have me excited to get back into the heat of battle. World PVP has always been my favorite variety (only behind BG locations that let me Thunderstorm people into oblivion ), and I think both the Siege idea, as well as the modified "Outpost" suggestions, would be a great way to get back into that Vanilla feeling of utter dread when trying to quest as a lowbie in the Barrens, and having to return to Crossroads after seeing that it's been under attack intermittently for the last hour you've been questing.

The bounty system is interesting, too, but the major hangup I have is just how difficult it could be to track somebody down in larger zones. That's the point, to some extent, and is somewhat remedied by the EMP/Thermal ideas suggested. My thought would be that for a player with a higher bounty, spies/local authorities would be putting more energy into tracking down those individuals, and as such they'd ping your minimap by default when you were within 200-300 yards. The environment is a HUGE world (of Warcraft) to spend much time tracking down one particular individual across its entirety.

I'm liking the way the idea is being fleshed out, OP. I say take it to official forums/twitter see if you can get a response. I'd love to have something like this implemented in WoD, would be a massive boost to the game and WPvP.